A Cambridge academic has been accused of tweeting ‘conspiratorial attacks’ against Jewish student journalists by the university’s Jewish society. 

Priyamvada Gopal, a professor of Postcolonial Studies at the prestigious university has been accused by the Cambridge Jewish society of “echoing historic tropes about media control, and insinuating that the Jewish journalists are acting out of fidelity to the IHRA definition of Antisemitism.”

In a Twitter thread earlier this week, professor Gopal responded to a column critical of her behaviour during a twitter spat with a fellow academic written by Jewish student Samuel Rubinstein by implying that his column was motivated by her stance on the IHRA definition. 

 Rubinstein’s column, published in the Varsity newspaper, said that Professor Gopal’s arguments were “suffocated by specious appeals to identity” and that she was wrong to condemn colleague Professor Abulafia for describing a black man as ‘eloquent.’

After Rubinstein’s piece was published, Professor Gopal launched a multi-tweet broadside at Varsity newspaper, alleging that she had been targeted for “attack” by the paper. Over the course of her thread, she said that the Varsity news editor concocted stories about her based on her opposition to Cambridge’s adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism. 

Gopal also described herself as “the subject of a concocted story eagerly picked up by tabloids & Murdoch press” as well as implying that the student journalist who wrote about her has “quite powerful familial connections to the liberal media.”

Cambridge University Jewish Society hit back at Gopal after her thread, saying that the society “Stands in solidarity with our members who have been subject to unfounded conspiracy theories and online intimidation.”

They added: ”In an inflammatory twitter thread she (Gopal) echoes historic tropes about media control, and goes on to insinuate that the Jewish journalists are acting out of fidelity to the IHRA definition of Antisemitism.”

Samuel Rubinstein, one of the students targeted by Gopal in her thread told The JC: “Prof. Gopal had every right to respond to my piece, and could have done so by taking issue with the substance of my argument, but that it is regrettable that her response - a tissue of falsehoods and rancid conspiracy theories, getting progressively unhinged as the day progressed - vindicated every single claim I made in my original article.”

Professor David Abulafia, the other academic at the heart of the spat, told The Times: “I’m not trying to get Gopal sacked but she’s clearly completely out of control. In a series of tweets she claimed that the student newspaper journalist I spoke to was part of a conspiracy.

“Both he and I are Jewish and we are all familiar with the antisemitic Jewish conspiracy trope — she even referenced guidelines designed to stop hate speech around the Holocaust."

In a statement on Twitter, Professor Gopal said: "It is a matter of puzzlement and grave regret that Varsity, a Cambridge student newspaper, has published misleading and false claims about my words that have predictably subjected me, yet again, to a concerted racist and misogynist attack across the British right-wing press who repeat these inaccuracies."